My parents had a toy skeleton they named "SkeleSon" as a joke. It used to keep me up at night telling me something bad was going to happen. According to my Mom, the way the story of SkeleSon's introduction to the family goes is quite mundane. My Mom loves dressing up, decorating, and generally celebrating every holiday out there, while my Dad is more of a "holidays are just a day off work" kind of guy, but when they got their first nicer apartment together, around Halloween, he bought her the toy as a joke because it was so incredibly silly looking. Since they were being patient about starting a family, they used to pick on each other by occasionally saying things like "you forgot to feed SkeleSon again today, didn't you! I can see his ribs!" You know, dumb parent jokes like that. I mean, I guess it's cute. Anyway when I was born (no, they thankfully did not name me SkinDaughter) they put it in my room and used to tell me that SkeleSon was my big brother and he was going to keep me safe from the ghouls and goblins of the world. We even had a bedtime song about- anyway it doesn't matter. SkeleSon is mostly fabric and stuffing but with some rigid pieces underneath for the "bones". He has an orange and black wide-brim hat, with matching striped vest and pants. He has black shoes and a bow tie of the same color. I can't express to you how silly this toy was. When I was very young, I used to revere SkeleSon, I guess like I would an older brother. I never played with him directly - he was only ever involved in make-believe in the role of advisor or wise-man to the other toys. It's not that my parents told me not to play with him, or that he was fragile or anything - I just thought of him as different. I can still feel the way the hair rose on the back of my neck the first time I heard him speak to me. I was 8 years old. It was late at night, and I was up a little later than I should have been. My parents had told me to be in bed by 9 but they fell asleep before that, so I stayed up to watch some more TV in my room. It took me a moment to realize the sound had come from my side and not from the speakers in front of me. "Go wake your parents up, or something bad will happen soon." I froze, and looked to where the sound was coming from. The only thing on my dresser in that direction was SkeleSon. Of course, I didn't assume it was him right away. "Hello?" I said out loud, clutching my covers tightly. I let go long enough to turn the volume down on the TV and saw SkeleSon's mouth move this time. His voice was calm, deliberate, and forceful. "Go wake your parents up, or something bad will happen soon." Being 8, I ran to my parents room crying. They asked what was going on and I told them I had a nightmare - even at that age I knew what I had seen wasn't normal, and I was scared to say it out loud and make it real. I got it from my Dad, he has always been one to keep his struggles to himself. I slept in my parents bed that night. The next time it happened was 2 months later. Similarly to last time, I was staying up later than my parents, but unlike last time I had a cousin spending the night this time. Simon and I were up "late" (maybe 10) playing video games, after a long day at the beach. Simon went to the bathroom and while he was gone, SkeleSon spoke to me again. "Go wake your parents up, or something bad will happen soon." This time, I didn't freeze, or cry. I knew Simon would be back in a minute, and I was more confused than scared this time. "What's going to happen?" I asked. SkeleSon turned his head towards me and only repeated himself verbatim. "Go wake your parents up, or something bad will happen soon." His head snapped back into place as I heard the door swing open, and Simon re-entered. "Who were you talking to?" Simon asked me. "Did you hear that?" I asked him in surprise. If he had heard SkeleSon talk, maybe I wasn't going crazy after all. "I only heard you mumbling, but I didn't hear what you said, were you yelling at the game?" He hadn't seemed to have heard anything specific after all. SkeleSon didn't move or speak for another 6 months. On my 9th birthday, me and all of my friends were going to go to an amusement park. The day before, I was so excited I thought I was going to be sick. I was reading all about the rides, attractions, and food at the park in bed when SkeleSon spoke again. "Go wake your parents up, or something bad will happen ***NOW***." He said the last word so sharply that it shook the windows. I sat up half terrified and half in disbelief. I opened my mouth to speak but before I could take a breath, he screamed #"**NOW!!! NOW!!! NOW!!!**" The shockwave from his voice scattered the dust in my room and almost knocked me off my bed. I took off running. I burst through my Mom and Dad's door and screamed "I need help!" before I blacked out. I woke up 38 days later in the hospital. They said the tumor was the size of a golf ball and growing, if they hadn't caught it when they did it would have started putting pressure on my brain and I could have started having hallucinations or even permanent brain damage. The operation was a success and I've never had any serious complications, aside from the 4 inch section of my scalp where the hair won't grow. The doctors insisted my blacking out was unrelated and just a random panic attack. They insisted there wouldn't have been any symptoms at all - my brain was normal and there was no excess pressure anywhere yet. They said normally, you can't really tell until it's already causing problems. They said we were so, so very lucky. They all patted themselves on the back for going through with the CT scans "just in case". SkeleSon never spoke to me again. He never moved. He never gave any indication he was anything more than a stuffed toy with a silly backstory. I still keep him around though. He moved with me when I went to college (much to the confusion and amusement of my parents, who never got the full story from me), and he lives with me in my first home, now. I'll introduce him to my kids as their Guardian Uncle, and he'll have a placement in their bedrooms when they sleep at night. Because even though it would be really easy for me to dismiss the encounters as hallucinations my doctors were wrong about, there was a reason they took those scans. My Dad wouldn't let it go, and forced them to get the scans. They argued with him to no end, but he wouldn't back down or explain why he was convinced they needed to be done. When my Mom asked him afterwards how, how could he have known? How could he have seen what the doctors couldn't, when he was just some middle manager, who had absolutely nothing in the way of medical knowledge? He swore her to secrecy (Mom and I drink wine together, though) and to this day has never mentioned it to her or anyone else again. He said "I know this might sound crazy, but as we were rushing out the door to the hospital, I heard someone shout 'Make them check her brain' from her bedroom."